October will be red, or won’t be.

Painter Ilya Repin (Илья́ Ефи́мович Ре́пин) is for Mother Russia what EastEnders is for British homemakers ; inescapable.

So yes, Barge Haulers on the Volga (Бурлаки на Волге) is a masterpiece from the 1870’s, and the revolutionary wind will only blow in 1917. However, dearest Ilya already understood the essential aspects of his time : people suffer, exploited by the implacable will of others. Conditioned to perceive and to be perceived through their labour power, these day-to-day workers, already exhausted, drag this boat, symbol of a slavery and unequal society.

Just beyond one of this creatures of shadow, whose eye can only haunt the spectator, one being is still not caught in this infernal movement. Young, with this blond hair which recalls childhood, he concentrates on himself the colors and the light of the composition. The bust is stood up, the eye is not looking downward like his fellows, but turned towards the horizon. This adolescent symbolizes both the generations, sacrificed on the altar of oppression and socio-economic inequalities, and the hope of a radical overthrow.

More realistic than Courbet, Ilya Repin is the Zola of Slavic painting, and a reference for all the Soviet realism movement.

We love Repin, and we also love red. So, happy birthday to October Revolution 🎂